- Jinder Mahal, who was released two weeks ago by WWE along with ten other performers, says he was taken by surprise by the news.

"I was surprised, because [3MB] were pretty well booked on everything," Mahal told SLAM! Wrestling in his first interview since his departure from WWE. "We were on a lot of the live events, a lot of the overseas tours. We were always on Raw and Smackdown, and if we weren't, we would do Superstars or Main Event in the week. So yeah, I was surprised."

Mahal plans to continue his wrestling career as he is accepting bookings through veteran talent booker Bill Behrens at sbibookings.com. Since he is prohibited from appearing under his WWE ring name on the independent circuit, he'll be known as Raj Singh going forward, the same name he used in his early wrestling days coming out of Calgary. The name is based on his real name of Yuvraj Singh Dhesi.

"I want to keep wrestling," Mahal says. "I'm still young and I would like to go back to WWE someday and accomplish things that I never got to do, work with people that I never got to work with."

Elsewhere in the interview, Mahal discussed his experience in 3MB, working with Drew McIntyre, future plans and more. The full interview is available here.

- Big E made a joking reference to the rumor of AJ Lee being pregnant in a Twitter message on Wednesday.